


Always

by A_Kid_Named_Hiro



Series: Tuli-chan and H's Prompt Challenge [3]
Category: Finder no Hyouteki | Finder Series
Genre: M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 16:15:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13744647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Kid_Named_Hiro/pseuds/A_Kid_Named_Hiro
Summary: Promptselected byTuli-chan.





	Always

**Author's Note:**

> **[Prompt](https://otpprompts.tumblr.com/post/122422541961/imagine-that-person-a-speaks-fluently-in-a)** selected by **[Tuli-chan.](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tuliharja/pseuds/Tuliharja)**

He wears them in bold, upon the wrist of his right hand where no watchstrap could hope to hide them, where no sleeve would conceal in this sweltering summer. 

They are a series of dashes and dots, reminiscent of a Morse code, interspersed with crosses and lines that curve like waves.

Asami studies them and wonders. 

Takaba seems unusually proud of his first and only tattoo. He wears it loudly, around his naked wrist like a shackle. 

Asami tries to guess at its meaning. He knows that Takaba always does everything with meaning, even when he's being meaningless. 

Asami knows many languages. Knows most codes. He does not know this. 

He presses the curl of his lips against the inside of Takaba's wrist. He hears Takaba draw a sharp breath. He has always been sensitive there. 

He raises his eyes to Takaba's, open and honest in their wonder and curiosity.

Takaba answers his gaze with a challenge. Cockiness and mischief light his eyes. They say, _I dare you to find out._

  


* * *

  


He cannot remember a time when he has done this much research. 

Asami spends hours online, trawling websites he never even knew existed. He pores over innumerable books. Watches all of Takaba's favorite movies for things he might've missed. Analyzes the lyrics of his favorite songs. 

He stares at Takaba's photos till their images remain seared into his corneas, long after he's closed his eyes. He sacrifices sleep. He would do anything to learn all he can about Takaba. He'd devour _everything._

He doesn't ask his men for help. Somehow, it would feel like cheating if he did.

  


* * *

  


It is not cheating if he tries to torture the truth out of Takaba with sex. 

Asami convinces himself of this, night after night, teasing Takaba to the edges of his sanity. He takes and takes. 

And Takaba is always willing. Always surrendering all but _this._

This maddening, aching thing. Asami can feel it. Knows it is right _there_ on the tip of Takaba's tongue, in the knowing, amused gleam of his eye that follows and taunts Asami like an infuriating little shadow. 

Takaba is like a river. He bends and curves around Asami, flows and melds into the heat of him. He gives and gives. But he does not know how to break.

  


* * *

  


Summer bleeds into fall. It bathes the city in red and gold.

Asami has made no progress. He refuses to give up. 

Takaba teases him with hints of black ink that peek from the bottom of his sleeve. He seems to delight in the sweet cruelty of it. 

Asami thinks him both annoying and endearing.

  


* * *

  


It is Takato who helps him, though Asami isn't looking for it.

They stand outside in the chill, warming their lungs with cigarette smoke. They speak of stupid things. They speak of the past. Asami enjoys this normalcy. 

In the years that have gone by, they have become something like friends. Kou has always been wary of him. But Takato — he has never been intimidated. He has never been afraid.

It is Takato who speaks more of Takaba's childhood than Takaba himself. Asami listens to these tales with a gluttonous fascination. He has always ever been fascinated with Takaba Akihito.

They used to pass notes in class, like most kids at that age were wont to do. Written in code, played at being spies, shielding their childish secrets from the watchful eyes of their teachers. 

Takaba had invented that code. He called them T-letters.

  


* * *

  


He finds the guide on the final page of Takaba's planner. Hidden in plain sight. 

Asami wonders how he'd missed it. 

He studies every dot and dash, cross and wave until he's got them all memorized. He rips out the page, folds it with care. Tucks it into his shirt pocket, where it nestles against the excited thump of his heart.

  


* * *

  


He kisses each letter and Takaba _knows._

Asami can see it. In the gentle, amused curve of Takaba's smile. In the relief and triumph and _want_ that light the brown of his eyes like autumn fire.

Asami's lips are reverent against the tattoo — an echo of the promise he'd made a decade ago, when they were both prideful and stupid, bodies and hearts honest where their words hardly knew how to be.

Asami raises his gaze and meets Takaba's own. He feels their oath beneath his lips. He finds it in the fire of Takaba's eyes.

It says, _Into the abyss._

  


* * *

  


Winter comes. 

Asami's new tattoo — his first and only — is hidden beneath the strap of his watch, beneath the cuff of his jacket. He is not as brazen as Takaba, never with matters of the heart.

He can feel it there, black ink over the steady thrum of his pulse. Sometimes, when he holds Takaba's hand, their tattoos touch. Asami never admits that he likes it, but he knows that Takaba knows anyway.

The tattoo doesn't circle his wrist like a shackle. It is brief, on the inside of his left wrist. The letters of Takaba's making. A piece of his childhood, his life, his _soul._

It reads, _Always._


End file.
